It was an early February morning. I was chatting with one of my 5th graders. He had been learning about the generations, what they were called, and why. We were talking about the Baby Boomers, mind you in an educational way. Another parent came in… he’s the sort of Boomer who voted for Trump, thinks the virus is a hoax, and who thinks it’s appropriate to talk to teachers about their sex lives in front of students. You know, the loud one…
Anyway, while he was dropping his son off he heard my 5th grader ask me what generation I was in. I told him that most people would consider me a Millennial, but that I’m on the border. The dad exploded… to be fair, in an almost jovial way.
“Oh, you’re a Millennial all right!”
Boisterously going on about how I was too soft with the kids, had been late that one time, and wanted to be everyone’s best friend. How he knew I was addicted to my phone because it was always out playing crappy music in the morning… all apparently tell tale signs of a Millennial in his mind. I smiled through it.
It was a weird moment for me as I’ve never felt called out for being a Millennial before. In part because I am on the cusp… And in part because most of the adults in my life are either Millennial themselves or smart enough to know that when you are born, while it may define some key aspects of your life, does not actually determine your worth as a person. Don’t get me wrong, my life definitely has some characteristics of a typical Millennial, but there are some pretty big ways in which I diverge as well.
I grew up in a small town, with limited access to cell service, internet, and TV. Which in many ways meant that my earlier childhood more closely resembled that of a 90’s kid, despite the fact that it was 2002. I had 3 TV channels growing up. I didn’t have internet access in my home until I was ten. I got my first Trac phone, a flip phone of course, at 13. I had a walk-man and my parents used books on actual tapes for care trips. I still own more VHS tapes than I do DVDs.
I had an AOL, but never a Myspace. I wore bell bottoms but no butterfly clips, and by the time I got into middle school, boot cut were back, and by the time I graduated high school we were wearing skinny jeans. I like Disney movies, but really only saw a few as a child, most of them I watched most of them as a teenager with friends.
I think in many ways my later teenage years were more representative of Gen Z. I watched YouTube vloggers, and posted on my own blog daily. I spent time and energy curating my posts. By the time I was a junior half my classes were online, I had 1,000 followers on my blog, and I was stressed to the max about paying for college.
Most recently in Quarantine I am reminded of the differences, with the bizarre vacuum of social media becoming even more relevant. I think Millennials hold a unique space here. We were the first group to slide into DMs and @ each other on Twitter. We’re the first generation to grow up with the inescapable pressures of social media. Often for me it was simply the pressure to HAVE and use social media. The oldest of our generation were graduated by the time Myspace became a thing, and me, I was still more interested in playing with Polly Pockets when Myspace was dying out.
Stuck between the creators and the most fluent users yet… I think in some ways we’re overlooked. I’d argue that we’re the glue that holds this shit together. We know what it’s like for the Gen Z kids, growing up with the pressure of social media and we also remember what it was like to live without it.
In a pop culture that is as much focused on old content as it is on new content, we remember the ‘OG’. Whether you’re talking Disney movies, viral dances, or memes. This is our second go round with scrunchies, Polaroid cameras, and bike shorts. And while this trend of the old becomes new again, isn’t new. It’s definitely been a trip watching it happen with my own childhood.
All that said…. I still don’t feel like a Millennial. The Millennial crew on TikTok… they’re in their 30’s, in their careers, married, and have kids. I’m 25, still in school, working in my field but not my career yet, I’m not married, and kids are still at least 2 years away. I’m only just now buying a house and will finally move out of my tiny apartment in a month or so.
But I’m not part of Gen Z either…. I’m working full time, I remember 9/11 and Obama’s first term, I can buy my own alcohol, and while I enjoy TikTok and love Instagram, I’ll never really be a part of it the way they are. And that’s okay.
It leaves me wondering, where I belong. In theory there are a bunch of other cuspy Almost Millennials out there. I don’t doubt that to that parent I am indistinguishable from any 35 year old liberal school teacher. Or that to the Gen Z TikTok crowd, that I can’t be differentiated from the nerdy wine drinking moms.
But I am. I’m an Almost Millennial.
Coffee & Conundrums 